Colorful dials are well-trodden territory for watch manufacturers from all price segments. Not every enthusiast can be won over with the classic black and white – something that Rolex has superbly accommodated with kaleidoscopic color schemes for its Datejust, Oyster Perpetual, and Day-Date collections. Other industry players like Omega and Audemars Piguet have also been flexing their creative muscles to incorporate more color into their watches in recent years. In any case, the entire color wheel seems to be fair game.
Color Psychology and the Watch Industry
In this day and age, nobody is going to believe that anything that happens behind the scenes at a major watch brand is a sheer coincidence. Marketing experts have known for a long time that colors play a key role in audience segmentation, leaning on research by prominent neuroscientists showing that our brain’s limbic system is involved in making purchasing decisions, unbeknownst to us. Research divides us into seven personality types: the adventurer, the performer, the disciplined, the traditionalist, the harmonizer, the open-minded, and the hedonist. Scientists have assigned favorite colors to each of these groups, along with some personality traits.
Now, where personalities are pigeonholed for marketing strategies, inflated stereotypes are not far behind. In this article, we’re taking a satirical look at the supposed connections between the color of your watch and your personality. Let us know if we get it right or if we’re way off the mark!
Black & Red: Elitist Performer on the Path to Success
Taking current neuroscience at face value, you’re probably someone who likes to take control of situations and exert dominance. You’re also very likely male.
You’re a thrill seeker who loves an adventure, and are always in top form. You probably get up at 5 am every day to hit the gym – there is no time for rest days in your strenuous fitness plan. The next 12 hours are spent at your well-paid job, where you exercise free rein and amicably order around your employees. You might even stay a little longer, because not only are you career-oriented, but it can get pretty boring in your bachelor pad.
Your expensive car is your pride and joy, and you’ve been thinking lately that a Breitling would fit quite nicely in your repertoire. Perhaps a Superocean Chronograph II in black and red?
Blue & White: Sticking to the Status Quo
If you decided on a watch with a blue or white dial, monotony is not a bad thing in your eyes. You’re disciplined and conventional, and so fall into the dutiful and morally-steadfast category. Your daily routine is determined by long-established rituals and rigid structure, which is why you always have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with your family at specific times. Any disruptions to your day-to-day can put you off kilter, so you save any spontaneity for the weekend, but usually end up having familiar conversations with friends you’ve known since kindergarten anyway. Deep down, you’re looking forward to Monday, when everything will be back to normal.
Since you only buy what you need (you make a healthy deposit into your savings account every month), your car is forgettable, but functional. And although you could afford a much more expensive watch, you opted for a practical chronograph from a reliable manufacturer, and who better to rely on than the Germans. After careful consideration, you decided on Sinn, and are now quite taken with your 358 Sa Flieger B E.
Brown & Green: Peace and Love in Perfect Harmony
If you have a watch with a brown or green dial, color psychology would classify you as a big softie if you’re a man, or pretty ordinary if you’re a woman. As an open-minded optimist, you live in a bustling urban area with your long-term partner, one or two kids, and a ditsy but devoted Labrador. You cherish friendships, which is why your social circle has a wide wingspan and consists exclusively of couples over the age of 40 who also have at least one child under 10.
In your professional life, you work for a foundation that has the very modest goal of saving the planet. To your great frustration, your job forces you to regularly take long-haul flights, since you can’t save the world from just one corner of it. To offset your insane CO₂ footprint, you write slam poetry on receipts from the health food store and have long since traded in your diesel guzzler for an electric car and bike combo.
You’re not interested in peddling capitalism, but Oris just published their sustainability report, and you were impressed. So much so that you decided to support their efforts by purchasing an Oris Pilot x Kermit Edition. After all, you share a struggle with Kermit; it really isn’t easy being green.
Orange & Yellow: The Pleasure-Seeker
If you wear a watch with an orange or yellow dial, you’re on a whole other wavelength to those other personalities. According to neuroscience, you’re a hedonist with a healthy reservoir of dopamine to dip into. You’re a fun-loving person who strongly believes that life is meant to be enjoyed, and instant gratification is not taboo. In other words, you’re the life and soul of the party. As a certified socialite and a heavyweight when it comes to holding your liquor, you’re known to frequent up-and-coming coastal resorts around the world. You sun yourself for the most part, putting down your piña colada every now and then for a round of beach volleyball. You live by the mantra, “Live each day as if it were your last” – mostly because you get crippling FOMO if you don’t.
You earn the funds for your extravagant lifestyle with ambiguous online hustles, day trading on rare commodities, and investments in cryptocurrencies that will soon die out. You get an adrenaline rush from this impulsiveness and risk-taking every time, without fail.
Depending on your liquid assets, one of two watch brands really speak to you. Those with more humble checking accounts swoon over DOXA, wearing the DOXA 1500T Divingstar loud and proud. Upper-crusters can go all-out with a Richard Mille. The RM 011-03 McLaren Flyback Chronograph should do the trick.
Final Thoughts
And that wraps up our tongue-in-cheek take on colorful luxury watches and what they might say about the people who wear them. Maybe you could relate to one or two of them, or maybe not – again, we went heavy on the sarcasm. But regardless of where new-age researchers may “classify” you, the important thing is that you enjoy the color of your watch, and maybe also that it matches your outfit. If you’re on the fence, you’re better off going for a watch with a black or white dial, these shades will suit almost anyone and any occasion.
